Sigmund Freud, often called the Father of Psychoanalysis, was born in 1856 in Moravia, present day Chechoslovakia. He was born to Jewish parents, Jacob and Amalia (twenty years older than her husband), who moved their family to Austria when their oldest son was four years old. His father, having a brilliant mind and good sense of humor, worked as a wool merchant to make a living. Sigmund seemed to take after his father in that he also was very intelligent, always being at the top of his class.
             Sigmund had two much older half-brothers and seven younger brothers and sisters. He also had a Catholic nanny whom he thought of as a second mother. His childhood consisted of many complex family relationships with his father and nanny especially. This is believed to have encouraged some of his most famous theories, such as the Oedipus Complex.
             Freud began his education in 1873, at the age of seventeen, attending the University of Vienna. He went to medical school and spent much time studying physiology and neurology. There, he became a brilliant researcher and began to work in Paris, as a doctor, with a French neurologist named Jean Martin Charcot. The two were both very interested in studying the emotional disorder of hysteria. Charcot was a hypnotist who influenced his ideas on the treatment of neurosis. The two doctors stumbled upon what they called "the talking cure" by treating a woman with hysteria through hypnosis, recalling traumatic events while hypnotized.
             In 1877 his interest in psychology began. He wrote his first book at this time, called "The Interpretation of Dreams". In this book he tried to prove that dreams are just attempts at wish fulfillment. In the early 1900's Freud published many papers on religion, literature, and history.
             His first well-known paper was written in 1901 called "Psychology of Everyday Life." In 1902, Freud was appointed associate professor at the University of Vienna and he fou...